Rubyvale to Home

We left Rubyvale the next morning to travel further east to visit our friends in Rockhampton.

It was on that morning that we received the phone call to say that my Mum was going downhill fast.  We contemplated just driving home, but that would take at least three days, so asked our friends to see if they could get me on a flight home. That was Saturday morning and the earliest they could get a flight from Rocky was on Monday evening.  They then tried Gladstone, about an hour and a half south and were able to get me a flight on the Sunday in the late morning.

So, we did finally get to see our friends, if only for one night.  We had been trying to get there since early May, but life seems to have conspired against us this year.

My flight home was good, with a stopover in Brisbane.  On boarding both flights they announce that the flights were full, so I was very fortunate to have been able to secure a seat.

Including our drive from Rockhampton to Gladstone and my train trip from Sydney to Bathurst, it took 13 hours to get home.

I did make it in time to see Mum, before she passed away the following day, something that I will be forever grateful for.

Mick, meanwhile, had to drive home in the wet.  It took him four days, as there was no longer any rush.

He found a couple of nice free camps along the way.

His final night on the way home was at Gulgong Showground and it finally stopped raining and provided a beautiful sunset.

And that ends our second attempt at a Queensland holiday this year.  We don’t think we’ll tempt fate by going a third time.  We hope to get up there and finally spend some quality time with our friends next year.

In the meantime, there are other trips to go on.

Emerald and Rubyvale

For once, we actually stayed two nights at the same place.  It was time to just have a day trip exploring.

There is a nice, bright sculpture at the intersection of the road that turns off to the gemfields.

First, we headed towards the larger township of Emerald.  What a change it was to see green, irrigated crops.

It was a shock to see traffic lights.  We hadn’t seen any since Orange, only 50kms from home.

We had a nice wander around town.  We have been here briefly once before, about 20 years ago, so don’t have a great deal of memory of it.  We did remember seeing the giant version of Van Gogh’s sunflower painting in the park.  It stands 25 metres tall and was completed on 1999.

The main striking building in town is the Railway Station.  It is far grander than those further west.

After our wander, we headed out to have a look at Fairbairn Dam, also known as Lane Maraboon.  First stop was the lookout to see the dam wall.  We read that the water level is only at 22%, so very low and no water going over the spillway.

You drive over the spillway.

The catchment is huge and the dam is a popular spot for fishing and boating.

After our look around, we returned to Emerald for lunch before heading back to the sapphire fields to try our luck.

The small towns of Rubyvale and Sapphire are located on sapphire gemfields.  

Cattle can roam freely and have right of way in the two towns, and we had to give way to a few.

If you are here you have to try to find a sapphire, don’t you. We had our sieve and bits and bobs, ready to go and have a scratch around, but really didn’t have any idea what we were required to do.  As we drove through Sapphire, which is before Rubyvale, we noticed a few businesses offering sapphire fossicking in a very controlled way.  At the caravan park, the fellow said you have a better chance of finding a sapphire at those establishments than getting a permit and going to fossicking sites.

We arrived at Sapphire at about 2.30pm and we noticed that most of the businesses closed a 3pm.  However, one stayed open longer, so we went there.  We learned that the reason they close a that time is that you need good sunlight to see the sapphires.  Yes, we could have a go, but we would be cutting it fine.

So how does it work?

You pay $30 for a bucket of dirt.  We just shared one.  They guarantee that you will leave with 70 carots of sapphires.  If you don’t find that amount they will top it up.  If you buy a more expensive bucket, you will find a cut sapphire in the dirt.

You are also given a sieve, pair of tweezers, jar lid and piece of hessian each.

First, you empty a bit of the dirt into your sieve and take it over to a bench where you pick out the larger rocks and throw them into the heap of rocks.

Then you take your sieve of dirt to a washing trough.  Here you rinse the dirt off the rock and sapphires with a special motion.  Like gold, the sapphires are heavier than most of the other rocks and will sink to the bottom.  We washed and washed, and after our first attempt realised we should have washed even more.  Live and learn. So, after you wash and wash and wash and wash, you take your sieve over to your piece of hessian that has been laid out on a mesh table.

Here you upend the stones in a quick action and hopefully manage to pick out lots of sapphires, which shine in the sunlight and are glassier looking than the surrounding stones.  

The lady proprietor was excellent in demonstrating everything that you needed to do.  She was also very good at coming along and checking what you had put in your little jar lid to see if it was actually a sapphire or just quartz or something else.  She also would find sapphires that you had missed.

We had a fabulous time there and felt the $30 was well spent for the fun we had.

So, did we find our 70 carots of sapphires?  Yes.  Mick did very well.  He actually found one sapphire that is 39.1 carots.  Our total was 92.7 carots, so we exceeded the expectations.  

We were going to purchase their cute little bottle to house our finds, but that one was too large to fit through the neck.

Did we find our fortune?  No, despite its large size, that sapphire is worthless, as it is flawed and cannot be cut.  But it is fun to say you found one that size.

Oh, and the cafe at the fossicking park sells very good cake for afternoon tea to take away.

The perfect end of another fun filled day of travelling.

Barcaldine to Rubyvale

We turned east after leaving Barcaldine and travelled on roads we have never been on before, which was a nice change.

There were several tiny towns to pass through.  The first was Jericho.  There is very little there to see…..

Except the smallest drive in theatre in the Southern Hemisphere.  Surprisingly, it still operates.  It was opened in 1969 and has recently had an upgrade, but the signage doesn’t give a date.

There are a couple of sculptures in the park playing on the biblical name of the town.   This is Joshua, the Trumpeter of Jericho.

On the edge of town there is a very cute Street Library.  It is a big shelter for a tiny library cabinet in the centre.  There was nothing there that interested us, but we did leave a couple of books that we have read.

The next town was Alpha.  It is slightly larger than Jericho, but not much.  There is a small information centre and basic museum.  All these towns were built as a result of the railway expanding west in the late 1800s.

The one interesting item was the railway station building from the neighbouring tiny settlement of Beta that had been relocated to Alpha.  It is interesting to read about, if you can zoom in.  I don’t thing there was a “Gamma” township.

There were some pretty flowers and butterflies in the museum garden.

Alpha’s Town Hall is rather reminiscent of that at Jericho.

After these towns we started to actually see some hills as we ventured further east.  

We stopped at Drummond Range Lookout to have our lunch.

There were lots of tall grevilleas in flower and lots of wattles, with flowers like stubby pipe cleaners.  Very pretty.

We were nearing our destination for the day and had time to do a small side trip to the village of Anakie, which was founded on the railway and has sapphire fields in the area.  The only building, other than a few houses is the pretty Railway Station, although no longer in use.

And so ended another day of travel.  A nice quiet afternoon was just what the doctor ordered, as we settled into our camp site at the sapphire township of Rubyvale.

Tambo to Barcaldine

Our first port of call on the next morning was the dump point in Tambo.  You have to do the domestics as you go along.  Anyway, fairly close by there is Tambo Lake Park, which is a lovely peaceful spot.  It would be nice to have a picnic here, but we were way too early in the day for that. 

After Tambo we continued to head further north, visiting the township of Blackall along the way.

The sign on the entrance to town is very clever.

Remember I showed the WWI nurse’s uniform in the museum in Tambo. Well in 2023, they erected a statue of Sister Greta Norman Towner in Blackall, which was her home town.

In the same park there is a second statue honouring her brother, Lieutenant ET Towner, who was a VC recipient.  Note that his statue was erected in 2009 and it took many years for his sister to be honoured in the same manner.

Another famous Blackall legend was the shearer Jackie Howe.  He was a gun shearer in the late 1800s, setting world records for shearing the most sheep in a day, all with blade shears.  His record wasn’t beaten until 1950, and that was with mechanical shears.  His statue is in front of a replica of the hotel he once owned.

Let’s have a bit of a wander around town.

We do enjoy wandering around these old country towns.

Back on the road, Charley Bilby was enjoying watching the world go by.

Our destination for the day was the next town, Barcaldine.  We have been through a couple of times, but not stayed here.  We didn’t realise it lies on the Tropic of Capricorn.

One place I really wanted to visit was “The Silver Thimble” quilt shop.  Sandy, the owner, pops into our Zoom sessions occasionally.  The shop used to be in the main street, but is now housed in her home.  I had visited the shop on a previous visit, but didn’t know Sandy at that stage.  It was nice to meet her in person.  Of course I forgot to take a photo of us.  Duh!

Sandy was wearing a nice, colourful blouse and I commented on the fabric.  She said it was a patchwork fabric and I guessed it was a Jen Kingwell.  She happened to have some in stock, as well as several other Jen Kingwell ones.  I purchased three fat quarters to add to my collection that will be made into something fun….one day.  Her blouse was in the top floral fabric.

After our visit, it was time to have a good wander around town.  Another town with lots of history and plenty of old buildings. 

The Masonic Lodge is rather spectacular, with its weatherboard front painted to look like stonework, and the sides built from corrugated iron.  It was in beautiful condition.

There were lots of large old hotels, but several don’t seem to be trading any more. There really does seem to be a decline in country hotels.

Let’s see some more of the town.

Barcaldine’s main claim to fame is the meeting held under the “Tree of Knowledge”, which was the start of the Australian Labor Party.  

The tree has now died, but the dead tree still stands with a sculpture built around it.

Just on dark, we decided to go and have another look at the Tree of Knowledge.  It was really worth it.  With the lighting, you can see the ghostly shape of the tree.

Seeing the street in the evening light was a fitting way to end another enjoyable day.